Blog Post 1: The Emergence of Influencers

The Emergence of Influencers

I've long felt that promoters are an essential marketing element to any successful product or service. In fact, this form of advertising is certainly a very personal and effective tool to get people to engage with products. However, this personal element to marketing has consistently fallen out of favour with big corporations and advertisers. By nature, promoters had two issues, their effectiveness was either too localised in terms of their sphere of influence or too expensive, hiring celebrities to show off their sponsored content. 

The marketing world has come a long way since mass marketing to all, inspired by the group thinking philosophy of Edward Bernays and blowing out their marketing budgets for Super Bowl adverts and sponsored shows/matches. The rise of social media since the late 2000s has given rise to the phenomenon of internet influencers. As these influencers often grow to popularity in sub-genres of media production, they build a unique audience of people interested in their content. Therefore, unlike TV, radio or billboards, which offered some levels of differentiation, based on channels of areas, influencers created an opportunity for companies to target a space where they could advertise to a niece market segment that was never before possible. 

Today I learned about strategies and tools used by online influencers to build their brand, profit from and engage with people through their social media personas. Firstly, I learnt about the concept of trust agents whereby influencers adopt a strategy of building trust with their audience. They do so by constantly posting content and actively remaining online to engage with their viewers. By being available to chat with, talk to and having group discussions live with subscribers/followers, influencers are able to better build connections and instil trust. This not only involves discussing topics related to their main channel, but also diving into issues that they care about. Doing this, influencers achieve a sense of accessibility that mainstream celebrities can seldom hope to reach, making the opinion of online personas valued to their audience. 

Furthermore, I learnt about the magic of repetition to enhance engagement. While this unsurprisingly a traditional advertising tactic which has a long proven history in the effectiveness of reminding and reiterating the brand to the viewers, in order to convince them into engaging with the product or service. Hearing the words, "please like, subscribe and share" are personally a trigger form me, in that it lessens the value of the content I've just enjoyed, by reminding me that everything is competing for my attention and the source automatically feels less trustworthy. However, I must admit that from a business perspective, it is a neat tool that helps channels and pages grow, if not sustain themselves.

Moreover, I found that another great way for influencers to grow their followers is to keep tabs on popular thought leaders in their industry. This helps them remain up to date with trends, ideas and issues facing the industry and can be the inspiration for their next show. Also, it helps them enter and associate with the ecosystem of other individuals or influencers in their field. Some of these people can be guests on their channel/page who can share their knowledge with like minded individuals. More importantly though, influencers can take advantage of each other to cross promote their channels through collaborations, helping them grow and diversify their audience.

Finally, I learnt about the support systems and mechanisms that exist in the industry to help artists, creators and influencers financially support their work. Patreon is a one stop shop for such support, through its platform which hosts a crowdsourcing initiative for online businesses. By offering a tiered subscription model for supporters to sign onto, patrons gain additional access to the individuals creating their favourite content. Such initiatives help influencers expand their potential beyond content, further into merchandising their brand. As a result, many talented folk online are able to make a living off their passion.

In conclusion, the modern day advertising approach has certainly evolved for the better. Thanks to the rise of social media influencers, just about anyone can turn their passion into a legitimate online business. With the help of tools such as trust agent strategies, repetition and cross promotions, influencers can hope to maximise user engagement. This has led to several innovations surrounding their ecosystem. With the added support of sponsors, Patreon and engagement based remuneration, I can say with some confidence that internet influencers are here to stay.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for weekly posts.

Aviral Jha